As if a volcano erupting wasn't enough!

[Ginny w/Groundwork Guatemala]

Greetings from Guatemala!
As many of you have noticed on the news and internet, Guatemala has
had quite a week. For a country the size of Tennessee, it's managed to
experience more than its share of natural disasters in the course of
three days.

On Thursday, while our mission team of fourteen from the Concordia
Seminary St. Louis was out with the Groundwork team making house
visits in Amatitlán, they experienced the earth shaking a bit followed
by what sounded like thunder. They saw that Volcan Pacaya (the one
that our five Guatemalans, Kevin and a guest of the ministry had just
climbed the end of April) was spewing more than the usual poof out the
top. They were pretty jazzed when they came back to Guatemala City
that afternoon to share that they'd seen the volcanic activity. Little
did we know that the loud thunder we heard at around 8:00 PM Thursday
night would top their story in a big way. Ruth called Kevin to tell
him to go outside because it was raining black ash. So we all ran out
on the roof outside our third story room to quickly be covered in what
was more like black sand (rather than a fluffy kind of ash one might
think) heavily falling out of the sky! It didn't take long to jump
back inside as our hair was soon filled with it. Several of the team
members ran for baggies to try to capture this oddity falling on the
roof. Kevin called us downstairs to see how quickly the street and
sidewalks had been coated with the sandy black ash. We learned that
Volcan Pacaya had erupted in a big way, shooting rocks and whatever
else is inside of a volcano over miles and miles of Guatemala.
Guatemala City is eighteen miles from the volcano, so you can only
imagine what the people who lived at the base of the volcano
experienced! Lives were lost, as well as hundreds of homes.

If it had been only the sandy ash, it would have been bad enough.
However, it was also raining on top of it, so now we have wet sandy
black ash making it extremely heavy! Imagine your entire house, yard,
driveway, sidewalk, streets, and vehicles covered in wet black sand!
Areas closer to the volcano had three to four inches of this heavy
stuff. Friday morning began the cleanup as the entire city and all
parts of Guatemala affected by this began sweeping and digging the ash
into bags. Unfortunately, the streets weren't being cleaned off, so it
sounded like cars were driving on slush as it rained enough to keep
things wet. Julián even went out in front of the house to clean off
the stripes down the middle of the road in front of the house.
Needless to say, the entire INside of the house sounds like we've
spread sand everywhere as it's tracked in by countless feet throughout
the day. We made the mistake of opening a window in the kitchen only
to find that every time there was a breeze, the ash on the trees
outside the window blew in.

So...that was between Thursday and Friday. Well, we learned that the
tropical depression that had been raining on us all week was turning
into a tropical storm. It rained all night Friday, then poured all day
Saturday. The team ventured to Antigua for a very short day of
breakfast, then the market. Our concern for the safety of the roads
grew as news of the upgrade of this storm reached us and the rain
continued to pour. Rachel had already given us the disappointing news
on Friday that all flights out of Guatemala were canceled indefinitely
due to the volcano, so the thought of this tropical storm adding to
the calamity was rather sobering. It didn't take long, however, to
begin to put our own disappointments aside as we considered the danger
that the people of Guatemala would be in as rivers rose and the rain
saturated earth gave way to mudslides. Today, we read of dozens who
have died, many who have disappeared, homes that have been destroyed,
lives that are changed forever.

Today, to add to this rather bazaar last few days, we, along with
several zones in Guatemala City, have no water. A pipe has broken
somewhere and they hope to have it repaired within 24 hours. This,
being Guatemala, would take quite a miracle. We have been blessed this
evening, as Manuel had a connection (no surprise) to someone who knew
someone with a huge water tank truck, who came and refilled our
cistern so we can at least flush occasionally. With 19 people in the
house, we feel very blessed. There are thousands not only without
water, but without homes. We can't imagine the repercussions of having
so much of this sandy ash washing into an already unstable water
drainage system in this country.

So, now it is Sunday. We pray that the work of cleaning the layer of
ash off of the entire airport will be completed and will reopen on
Tuesday so our flights that have been re-booked from Tuesday through
Thursday will begin to carry this wonderful team back to their loved
ones. HUGE thanks to Rachel who spent hours on the internet checking
on the status of flights as well as on the phone w/airlines for the
last few days. You've been a lifeline!

We are so blessed. We're safe, in a house with a roof and a floor. We
have dry beds and blankets and have a way to communicate with our
families. We have food and pure bottled water to drink. Please pray
for the people of Guatemala who have so seriously been affected by the
eruption of the volcano and the flooding of the tropical storm. May
they feel God's loving arms surrounding them and may they turn to Him
for hope.

Thank you for your love, concern and prayers! Continue to pray that
God will make His path clear how best we can serve the people here.
With love,
Ginny